Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Underpants of Mystery

According to quantum theory, sub-atomic particles can pop in and out of existence at random intervals. Unfortunately, there is not, as far as I know, a branch of quantum theory dealing with underpants.

Why am I telling you this? Only because there is sitting, on the dinner table at the moment, in my house, a pair of underpants that seem to have come from nowhere. They appeared on the clothes rack last week, after I was taking in my (mostly) dry clothes at the end of the day. I assumed they were my flatmates; I put them back on the clothes rack and mentioned them to him later.

This afternoon I came back and found the underpants sitting on the table. I asked my flatmate why he was leaving them on the table, only to be told that they were 'not his'.

How can a pair of underpants like this mysteriously magic themselves into existence? Where did they come from? To whence are they going? I can only conclude that in my house, I have discovered the existence of a phenomenon that has hitherto been merely the subject of speculation for theoretical physicists and the like: the quantum underpants. I am not reassured by this discovery: quite the opposite. If these underpants can suddenly appear in my house, what about the underpants that I already own? What could they be doing behind my back? They could be wearing other people without telling me! They could decide to vanish, completely without notice, while I have them on!

In the shifting, transient universe of quantum underpants mechanics, anything could be possible.

Um, not sure, unless you have three halfs. The underpants are still sitting there, mocking me.

In Schrdinger's famous Underpants thought experiment, he proposed leaving a pair of his wife's best pantaloons in a box with the neighbourhood snowdropper. He postulated that in some versions of Quantum Underpant Reality, you could open the box days later and the underpants would still be there.

In Wormhole Underpant-Theory, holes that are eaten in your underpants by worms or moths become vortexes in space time that you probably don't want to put your bits through.

By a probably not terribly curious coincidence, I have recently made a pact with a friend to read Quantum Theory for Beginners when I have an idle moment, so I will be able to understand what he's talking about, but mostly because I want to know about the cat.

Commiserations on the reverse snowdropper. If it was sanitary, such a person might be useful. If only it was happening with socks!

A new technical dilemma for you- when I go to the comments section I always get this message asking me if I want to display the non-secure items. Lately (I think for the last couple of days) when I click "yes" it comes back again and again and again, so I have to refresh just to scroll down. This only seems to happen with your blog.

Didn't Alexis have a "problem" like this? She was on the ground floor and underpants were falling into her courtyard from an upper level, I seem to recall. If you're in a block of flats, I'm sure it's something perfectly simple like that, although that wouldn't be nearly as much fun as a reverse snowdropper!

Tim, have you considered a supernatural explanation, rather than a scientific one? A client of mine once told me that, after her husband died, she thought his spirit was behind odd things that happened around the house. One example: she had a favourite pair of red knickers that he liked her to wear, and one day, after putting the washing away in her drawers, she went out of the room, and came back to find the red knickers sitting in a prominent position on the bed. She was certain they had been put in the drawers.

Or maybe it's a bit like the apports that appear in poltergeist cases (indeed, as shown in the film Poltergeist, of which I am enormously fond!)

Yes, maybe you have the key to proving that unseen dimensions exist, all in a pair of underwear. Guard them carefully. Or set them up in a corner with infrared lighting and a motion detection camera, to see if they dematerialise during the night.

If you wake up in the middle of the night with them stuffed in your mouth, take them to a Catholic churuch and wash them in the holy water dish at the door. Don't worry, the Magistrate will understand.

I think I will actually give the reverse snowdropper biography a pass, if only because I am working out all the fine details of quantum underpants mechanics.

I hear that if you stand outside Alexis place, close your eyes, hold out your hands, and think very carefully about a specific type of underwear, when you open your eyes, they will have fallen into your hands!

Barely known Blogger Timt was yesterday accused of needing encouragement to post any old slightly worked piece of wordsmithery that comes into his head. When questioned Timt denied that this was the case. He claimed that he 'does it for the love of the thing, the sheer joy of annoying people, polluting the internet, and corrupting pcs the world over'.In related news, it continues to be tea time, or almost so.

That really is a devilishly good plan- steal his act (and spoof newspaper articles are a particular favourite, aren't they?) and he'll be completely at a loss. He'll probably start running around the table like a chook with its head cut off, forgetting that the offering to the reverse-snowdropping poltergeist is still in the middle of the table. The poltergeist will answer the call in abundance and he'll have only enough breath left to squeak out one final pun before perishing in a hail of underpants.

Tim, I have thought of another explanation. Is your flatmate secretly gay? Does he push you out the door to go see movies, and then seem particularly relaxed when you return 4 hours later? Could he have mistaken his guests underwear (which ended up in his washing) as yours, and not be willing to admit the mistake when he told you he assumed they were yours?

I am not sure whether my mentioning this is slightly amusing, or just creepy.

I should note that I'm finding all these underpants-or-non-related-underpants comments hilarious, including Steve's marvellous contributions. This could say more about me than anyone else, though. I always fund undies hilarious.